Universal Boasts Record-Breaking ‘Trolls World Tour’ Digital Debut

(from left) – Meet the King and Queen of Funk: King Quincy (George Clinton) and Queen Essence (Mary J. Blige) in "Trolls World Tour," directed by Walt Dohrn.

Universal didn’t mess with the release date of Trolls World Tour, making the controversial decision to release it straight to VOD. As the first major new film to go direct to digital, a lot of eyes have been on the animated musical’s performance, and at least according to Universal, the results were record-breaking.

According to Deadline, Universal is boasting Trolls World Tour‘s record-breaking first-day numbers on digital. Opening last Friday, the film reportedly did more than 10x the numbers of the previous record-holder, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. So given what we know about Fallen Kingdom, which is that it made between $2M-$3M on day one, then Trolls did somewhere in the neighborhood of $20M.

If those numbers held up through the weekend, expect Universal to tout the full weekend total. It should come as no surprise the film is #1 among all digital platforms including Amazon, Comcast, Apple, Vudu, Google/YouTube, DirecTV and FandangoNOW.

While comparisons aren’t exact, consider that Avengers: Endgame, the biggest movie of all-time, did around $30M in digital sales in its first full week. Based on that, we can reasonably expect Trolls to exceed that by a wide margin. Of course, Fallen Kingdom and Endgame were both films that had $1B theatrical runs first, while Trolls is fresh out the box.

Universal put a lot into pushing the digital release of Trolls World Tour, and obviously, it has paid off. But does this mean we’re looking at a game-changer for the industry? Only time will tell.

Travis Hopson has been reviewing movies before he even knew there was such a thing. Having grown up on a combination of bad '80s movies, pro wrestling, comic books, and hip-hop, Travis is uniquely positioned to geek out on just about everything under the sun.
A vampire who walks during the day and refuses to sleep, Travis is the co-creator and lead writer for Punch Drunk Critics. He is also a contributor to Good Morning Washington, WBAL Morning News, and WETA Around Town. In the five minutes a day he's not working, Travis is also a voice actor, podcaster, and Twitch gamer.
Travis is a voting member of the Critics Choice Association (CCA), Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and Late Night programmer for the Lakefront Film Festival.